


Magnum Opus

by Toasterama



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, NepKat, its short, nepeta is dead, oneshot???, shes like hella dead over here, uh, unrequited nepkat, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 06:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toasterama/pseuds/Toasterama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her skin was becoming marble, carved paper thin by a sculptor with a delicate hand.<br/>	She fancied herself an artist, too, but she could never have made a masterpiece like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magnum Opus

**Author's Note:**

> Nepeta's canonical death, after Gamzee leaves her behind for dead. I didn't tag it as graphic descriptions of violence but she is bleeding and smashed up and stuff so yeah warning! it's pretty short also. uvu thanks for reading friends

She lay dying on the ground.  
Her hands twitched weakly. She still had enough energy left to move, and to speak, but she was too scared to. She wanted to call out to Equius, let him comfort her in her last moments.  
She wanted him to pick her up and cradle her and whisper that it would be okay, and she wanted it to be true, and she wanted them to make up with Gamzee and live in happy normality like they used to. And she wanted everything to be okay. She wanted that so badly.  
Most of all, in that moment, she wanted to call out to him.  
But she was scared there would be no response.  
And she knew there wouldn't be.  
A tear bulged in her right eye. She held it back. She would not die crying. She was stronger than that.   
But wasn't anything okay? Nothing was shameful at this point. She was dying, and she knew it. She didn't want to believe it, didn't want to think about it, didn't want to know it. But she did. And she hated herself for it.  
Bruises ebbed under her skin, aching deep and long through her limbs. She could not see but she knew they were already forming, dark streaks of pulsing olive blood under flimsy grey skin.   
They wouldn't be pulsing for long.  
She realized she'd been biting her lips. She let go with a deep, rattling sigh. Her prey had made that exact deep, rattling sigh before, she realized with a subdued jolt.  
Was she prey now? His prey? Her stomach turned at the thought, and she curled very slightly. Even the smallest movement sent flames of pain through her. She was broken, all broken, and she would never be repaired.   
The sob she'd been keeping leaked out, a pitiful sound. It brought with it the metallic taste of blood, and she could feel it dripping down her parted lips.   
All around her was blood. Her blood. Pooled around her arm, which was grossly twisted and constantly made itself known by setting her nerves on fire every time she neglected it. Seeping from her ribs, bashed in by the merciless clubbing of her murderer. And Equius's murderer too.  
His blood was there too. She'd watched, helplessly, as it flowed from the puncture wound in his knee, deep cerulean like the sky right after sunset. It wasn't flowing anymore. The broken bow lay, now forgotten, tangled in his hair and tossed aside next to his body.  
She spit to clear the blood welling in her mouth. Her face was spattered with a mixture of blood and saliva and tears and she was in no position to clean it. She let the tears come easily now, dripping from drooping eyes and spilling onto her cold cheeks and the colder floor. Her skin was becoming marble, carved paper thin by a sculptor with a delicate hand.  
She fancied herself an artist, too, but she could never have made a masterpiece like this.   
Her deathly sculptor lowered her eyelids. But she fought against him, forcing her eyes open. She would not die yet. She would not die alone, beaten without standing a chance, weak and helpless and pitiful and tortured and useless. She would not die having been thrashed around like some sort of wiggler's doll in some sick game, then being thrown away, only a shell of what she'd once been.  
She would not die alone.  
But what was the alternative?   
There was nothing to do. She was falling quick, falling hard, falling into the massive void where she would be trapped forever amidst the nothingness. She could never win.  
A fresh batch of tears released themselves.  
Would her friends remember her? Would Gamzee regret his burst of insanity? Would Tavros carry on roleplaying, perhaps with Terezi? She'd had such fun with Terezi, creating worlds and being the purrbeast to her dragon. What about Rose? She hadn't really talked to her, but she'd been nice to her. And when she was dead, would she turn out like Aradia? She wouldn't be so alone, if that was the case. The thought gave her a flicker of warmth.   
What about Karkat?  
Would he remember her?  
Would he miss her?  
Would he fall to his knees in grief upon the news of her death, racked by sadness that he'd never get to tell her he really did have flushed feelings for her?  
She'd never really gotten to tell him.  
She played out the scene in her head like she had so many times before.  
“Karkitty,” she'd begin. He wouldn't object to the pet name. “I have something to tell you.” She'd have a sort of teasing tone in her voice, coy and confident. He'd smile, not patronizingly, but an actual smile, and would ask her to go on. She would tell him to come closer, that was a secret and she had to whisper. And she would confess, still in the confident tone, and he would blush and smile and stammer out that it was reciprocated. And then they might kiss. Kissing would be nice.  
It would never happen.  
Not now.  
She remembered how she painted with the blood of the beasts she'd hunted. She'd made so many colors, so many different shades to smear her walls with in patterns and artwork and drawings of her friends.  
She could do that now, she thought. Paint, with blood.  
With her blood.  
It would be one tone and one tone only, the bright olive that still flowed however sluggishly through her veins, and still flowing onto the ground. But it was no challenge for an artist like herself.  
And it would be morbid, incredibly so. Painting with her own blood. But it was no challenge for the dying. Like herself.  
She moved her fingers, stirring life or lack thereof into them. Her gloves were long gone, ripped unceremoniously off by Gamzee and worn as a trophy. She missed them.   
Her hands were already covered in blood, but she needed fresher paint. Moving as slightly as possible, she dipped two fingers in the pool swelling next to her chest and began to draw the outline of a face. The face took a more defined shape as she moved more easily, ignoring the pain. Two eyes, curved up in a smile although sunken. A grin studded with uneven pointy teeth. A firm jaw and thick eyebrows. Spiky, unkempt bangs and nubby horns.   
As she moved down onto the neck her hands became more shaky, a strange weight settling all over her. She went over her lines patiently. She had time. Nothing but it.  
She got to the shoulders before her vision began to distort. She had reached the arms by the time her own refused to move. Her tears were no longer falling.  
Using the last of her strength, she kissed her fingers and placed them on the lips of the drawing she'd created.   
She was dying, but she was not as alone anymore.  
Her eyes drooped closed finally.  
Her fatal sculptor carved an unbeating heart.


End file.
